South Korean Students Demand Faster Action in Election Probe

Won Sei-hoon, a former head of the National Intelligence Service, leaves the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in April.

South Korea student anger is growing over what many believe to be a slow and insufficient investigation into an allegation that the country’s top intelligence agency attempted to influence the presidential election last December.

Last Friday, Supreme Prosecutors’ Office indicted Won Sei-hoon, the former National Intelligence Service chief, on charges of violating the election law that bans a civil servant from intervening an election and the NIS law that prohibits its officials from meddling domestic politics.

According to the prosecutors, Mr. Won allegedly ordered his subordinates to launch a political offensive against opposition party candidates including Moon Jae-jin, the candidate from the main opposition United Democratic Party. Mr. Moon lost the election against Park Geun-hye by about one million votes.

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From Sept. 19 until Dec. 14, nine NIS officials made more than 1,700 online posts or comments and among them 67 posts were found to be legally problematic, the prosecutors said.

Separately, the prosecutors also indicted Kim Yong-pan, the former Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner, last Friday on charges of trying to whitewash the investigation by police into the allegation. Three days ahead of the election, the police said they found no evidence that showed illegal online activities.

There has been no official response from the presidential office on this matter. Mr. Won and Mr. Kim denied the charges against them.

The allegations tap into many South Koreans’ deep mistrust of the NIS, which has historically been involved in several political controversies.

Several university student bodies in Seoul released a statement Thursday demanding a separate parliamentary inquiry into the allegation and a strict punishment for officials involved. More schools are said to join the move. Student groups from other schools said they were also going to join the move.

On Thursday morning, the student body of Seoul National University, one of the country’s most prestigious schools, held a rare press briefing in front of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in Seoul.

“Core government agencies intervened in an election where people exert their sovereign right, damaging the spirits of democracy,” it said, urging that “officials found to have meddled in the election and tried to whitewash the investigation should be strongly punished.”

Since the NIS’s inception in 1961, the country’s leaders often used the agency to quell and torture political opponents and influence domestic politics.

In 1997, the NIS spread a false rumor that Kim Dae-jung, who was then the presidential candidate from a main opposition party and elected president that year, received political money from then North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The head of the NIS Kwon Young-hae was later found guilty of launching the smear political campaign and sentenced to five years in prison.

Meanwhile, the National Assembly on Thursday said there has been a bipartisan agreement on planning to reform the agency and pursuing a parliamentary investigation into the case. No detailed plan has yet to be announced.